Don’t Miss Out

You’re all set!

Look out for our weekly updates soon.

Connect with us

Each week we send a customized newsletter to our parent and teen subscribers. Parents can customize their settings to receive recommendations and parent tips based on their kids’ ages. Teens receive a version just for them with the latest reviews and top picks for movies, video games, apps, music, books, and more.

Sign up now for the latest news, top picks for your kids, and helpful tips.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this is a very, very gory movie, with many headless corpses, lots of spurting blood, heads being sliced off and bouncing to the ground, various other murders, a couple of "boo!"-type scares, and of course characters perpetually in peril. The heads all show up eventually, too. There is a brief but non-explicit scene of a couple having sex, several very gross moments, and a scene of torture in an Iron Maiden.

User reviews

Parents say

Kids say

What's the story?

Johnny Depp plays the honorable but easily frightened Ichabod Crane, in this version not a schoolteacher but a sort of 18th century detective, committed to the use of science and logic. He is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders attributed to the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a bloodthirsty Hessian soldier, who steals the heads of his victims because his own was stolen from his grave. Crane insists that the murderer cannot be supernatural, until he sees it himself. Still, he analyzes the evidence to find the secrets that link the victims together and the human force driving the Headless Horseman.

Is it any good?

QUALITY

SLEEPY HOLLOW is less the Washington Irving story than it is Scream set in post-revolutionary times. The themes of science vs. supernatural and appearance vs. reality appear throughout the movie, as Crane must understand his own past in order to see the truth. He describes himself as "imprisoned by a chain of reasoning." He keeps coming back to a toy given to him by his mother, a spinning disk with a bird on one side and a cage on the other. As it spins, the bird appears to be inside the cage, an optical illusion, and, not by coincidence, the very illusion (persistence of vision) that makes viewers think that the people in the thousands of still pictures that make up a movie are really moving.

Depp plays Crane with the right haunted look and rigid posture. But the ludicrousness of some of the plot turns and the exaggerated fright reactions leave him with the most outrageous eye-rolling since Harvey Korman's imitation of a silent film star. Indeed, the movie frequently brings to mind those sublime "Carol Burnett Show" movie parodies, especially when the villain ultimately finds time for a detailed confession as the planned final victim is waiting for the Headless Horseman to arrive. The wonderful Christina Ricci is wasted in an ingenue part.

Families can talk about...

Families can talk about whether gore is ever necessary in a film. Is gory the same thing as scary?

About our buy links

When you use our links to make a purchase, Common Sense Media earns a small affiliate fee from Amazon or iTunes. As a nonprofit organization, these funds help us continue providing independent, ad-free services for educators, families, and kids while the price you pay remains the same. Thank you for your support.Read more

Great Movie

I had to see this because I love Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and Danny Elfman. It was suprisingly good, being one of the only horror movies I have allowed myself to see (I'm more of an adventure-fantasy guy). I'm no parent, but the blood looks fake, and so do the severed heads. It's not that bad. Give it a look to watch on Halloween or Thanksgiving.

I don't get this site. It pans some of my favorite movies... Whatever. You know what's weird? I scrolled through the members' reviews, and most of them gave the movie 4 or 5 stars, while "common sense" says that "there are lot of slasher movies better than this," and gives it two stars. You know what? I'm calling bull. How can you dismiss this as just a slasher film? This is more of a murder mystery! Are you just against the movie because of the gore? But you know, whatever floats your boat. Enough against the faceless people that run this site who will most likely never read this review.
I believe this this was an awesome movie, my family and I see it every Halloween. If you like Tim Burton, watch this. If you like Johnny Depp, watch this. If you like horror movies, watch this. I'm not saying that this is my favorite movie, but it is very good. And I don't just like it because I'm a Tim Burton fan. This movie has a great atmosphere, you really feel a sense of foreboding throughout. Plus, after seeing it a couple times, you really pick up on some extra things going on in the background. And maybe it's because I'm terrible at foretelling the outcome of movies, but I was caught by surprise by the ending. Any horror and mystery fan will love this!

Movie recommendations for your kids right to your inbox

Each week we send a customized newsletter to our parent and teen subscribers. Parents can customize their settings to receive recommendations and parent tips based on their kids’ ages. Teens receive a version just for them with the latest reviews and top picks for movies, video games, apps, music, books, and more.

Our Policies

Download our free app

Common Sense is the nation’s leading independent non-profit organization dedicated to empowering kids to thrive in a world of media and technology. Families, educators, and policymakers turn to
Common Sense for unbiased information and trusted advice to help them learn how to harness the positive power of media and technology for all kids.

The Common Sense and Common Sense Media names, associated trademarks, and logos, including the Decider Slider and Age Ratings Bugs,
are trademarks of Common Sense Media, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization (FEIN 41-2024986).